Abstract
The labyrinth is the mythic space from which an Antic hero finds his way out by following Ariadne’s thread. This chapter argues that Goethe’s morphological studies on the metamorphosis of plants, which had influenced both thinkers’ language of intoxication, may work as an Ariadne’s thread inside the labyrinth of Modernity. For Goethe, the plant was an unfolding leaf, which signifies the mimetic powers of nature, and in such capacity it stood as an ideational intoxication in relation to his work. Cocaine and hashish are plant-based drugs, and in this regard, the very idea of a plant as nature’s mimesis, the chapter hypothesizes, offers a way out of “our narcotic Modernity.”
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Bjelić, D.I. (2016). The “Unfolding Leaf” as Ariadne’s Thread. In: Intoxication, Modernity, and Colonialism. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58856-2_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58856-2_8
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